Pile fabrics in general are well known and typically include a plurality of pile yarns tufted through or bonded to a substrate such as a scrim layer. By way of example only, one prior known technique for forming a pile fabric has been to pass pile yarns back and forth between opposing substrate layers so as to form a coordinated structure and to thereafter slit the formed structure between the substrate layers so as to yield a free-standing pile surface extending away from each of the substrate layers. Patterning across the pile surface may thereafter be carried out by various means including shaving, impingement by hot air so as to selectively melt outstanding pile yarns in a desired pattern, chemical degradation in a desired pattern using acid etching or the like, and impingement by high pressure water streams so as to dislodge and/or reorient pile fibers in a desired pattern. While such techniques have been useful, they have nonetheless been relatively complex and difficult to carry out due to the need to use specialized equipment to carry out the patterning procedures.
Fabric formation using so-called stitch bonding techniques is well known. Such techniques include so-called Mailiwatt and Liba processes. In such processes, a multiplicity of stitching yarns is passed repeatedly in stitching relation through a substrate in closely spaced rows so as to form a coordinated arrangement of surface stitches in covering relation to the substrate. While it has been possible to use such stitch bonding techniques to form substantially uniform pile surfaces, it is not believed that structures using multiple yarn systems to impart intricate patterns of raised and lowered surfaces has been used in the past.